Livestock food processing mixing machine

ABSTRACT

A mixing machine consists of a hopper having a main chamber within its housing with a rotary member, a secondary chamber having a bottom worm conveying the material from one end of the mixing machine to the other end thereof, until collapsing with a loop found on its front portion and generating a material bubble; an upper worm to remove the material bubble and carrying it up to the middle part of the machine. At the middle part of the machine, the material is forced by a loop system having an upper worm to move towards the rotor area, such that the material is actually moving towards the back portion of the machine, completing a mixing cycle. The upper worm has from the middle of its axis, a plurality of discs on which peripheral edge of each disc is mounted a series of exchangeable knives placed on a loop arrangement, which are passed through a counterplate, and which shows a series of exchangeable knives placed at the bottom part of the material collector chut, so when the upper worm discs plurality is rotating, it allows both, humid and dry fibers be efficiently crushed and/or ground and besides added to the other several common ingredients a unique and highly qualified mixing is achieved.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to a livestock food mixing machine. Morespecifically, the present invention is related to a system that ensuresa better mixing and grinding of food for livestock in a shorter time.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Fodder, pasture, and grains, among others, are common livestock foodcomponents, that can be used alone or mixed and which constitute thereason of the existence of several types of mixing machines.

There are several mixing devices, which mixing technique consistsbasically of a bottom chamber for moving the material from the backportion to the front portion of said machine, through a worm, strikingsaid material with a reverse loop at the discharge height; thusresulting in a material bubble. Said bubble is removed by a superiorworm that carries the material to the back machine portion and in suchway that closes the mixing cycle.

Mixing techniques that are closer to our invention are previouslydisclosed by the following United States Patents: U.S. Pat. No.2,865,416 (Hetteen), published on Dec. 23, 1958; U.S. Pat. No. 4,951,883(Loppoli), published on Aug. 28, 1990 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,967,433(O'Neil), published on Oct. 19, 1999.

Where the U.S. Pat. No. 2,865,416 discloses a straw trimmer, which ismainly comprised of a plurality of trimming bars mounted on a rotaryaxis and circumferentially placed on an equidistant form. Likewise, saidtrimmer has a plurality of stationary blades with a triangularconfiguration placed upon an adequate holder, each blade has two cuttingedges, such that can cut said relatively resistant material andrelatively fragile materials.

U.S. Pat. No. 4,951,883 discloses a spreader-mixer-shredder towing car,particularly for cylindrical and prismatic shape fodder, hay and grassbales which comprises an enlarged vessel essentially in the form of ametal-sheet hopper. Two bottom rotary worms placed adjacently, and twospaced upper rotary worms respectively longitudinally provided on eachhopper. Each one of the bottom worms is actually supported by a longdiameter axis. A plurality of blades is strictly associated to theexternal loop edge on each bottom worm.

Likewise, said patent mentions a plurality of triangular prongs whichare placed on each one of the wedge elements edges and blades providedand the upper portions of the vessel bottom on its side, where it isreached by blades during bottom worms rotation. Triangular prongsadequately border the external worms edge and the flat portion betweenthe prongs border the tearing blade.

Finally, U.S. Pat. No. 5,967,433 discloses a device for supplying andmixing food such as hay, straw and similar, which includes a mixingcompartment and a supplying compartment. A mixing rotor which is rotaryon the mixing compartment to mix livestock food and the worm to supplywithin the compartment. A plurality of first blades radially extendingfrom the rotor mixing vanes and cooperates with the plurality of secondblades mounted on the mixing compartment base to cut the fibrousmaterial of livestock food in relatively short lengths while the mixingrotor is rotating.

But none of said mixing machines offer what the market demands now adays, which is to incorporate hay, grasses and fodder with long humidfibers, which could be quickly and efficiently ground within same mixer.Generally, common failures in the mixing machines lies on the use ofthese long humid fibers that due to the lack of user control areincorporated into these mixtures, tangling up within the worms untildamaging the equipment.

There exists the need to be able to incorporate long, humid and dryfiber materials, and that the mixing machine could be able to grind orcrush said material promptly and efficiently; this is, withoutincreasing mixing times and without power requirements and failurecauses.

BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The main object of the present invention is to offer a livestock foodmixing machine having the capacity to mix different ingredients ormaterials independently from their size, consistence or humidity, on aquicker and efficient manner, and at the same time having the capacityto efficiently crush and/or grind ingredients having long fibers,independently if they are dry or humid, and being aware not to altermixing times, good mixture quality, low power requirements, lowmaintenance rates and low cost, since the above will result in costsavings for livestock food products farmers and stockbreeders, reachinga higher competitiveness.

The present invention is related to a mixing machine which basicallycomprises a hopper, that has a main chamber within its housing, with arotary member (rotor), where at said rotor ends there are cleaningelements for sweeping the floor and taking up the material, by feeding asecondary chamber, which is located in parallel adjacent to the mainchamber, where said secondary chamber has a bottom worm conveying thematerial from one end of the mixing machine to the other end thereof,until collapsing with a loop found on its front portion and generating amaterial bubble; an upper worm to remove the material bubble andcarrying it up to the middle part of the machine. At the middle part ofthe machine, the material is forced by a loop system having an upperworm to move towards the rotor area, such that the material is actuallymoving towards the back portion of the machine, completing a mixingcycle.

On the other hand, this same upper worm has a discs system mounted on aspiral arrangement, which in turn has exchangeable knives strategicallyplaced on the peripheral portion thereof. Said knives are passed througha counterplate, which is also equipped with exchangeable knives placedat the bottom of a material-collector chute. This design allows thatboth, humid and dry fibers be efficiently ground and/or crushed andbesides other several common ingredients to be used, a unique and highlyqualified mixing is achieved.

Each inner member the mixing machine has is actuated through actuatingmechanisms, such as chains, sprockets, etc. Where the motor source isthrough a conventional or tractor vehicle.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Features, objects and advantages of the present invention, can beunderstood from the specification determined by the following drawings,where similar reference characters are correspondingly identified in alldrawings, where:

FIG. 1 is a right side perspective view of the mixing machine hereof.

FIG. 2 is a cross-sectional cut taken along the line X—X of FIG. 1,where the present invention mixing machine inventive portions can beseen.

FIG. 3 is a perspective view of the mill system according to the presentinvention.

FIG. 4 is a perspective view of the flow system developed by the mixingmachine of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a left side perspective view of the mixing machine accordingto the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

Firstly, it is important to show that there are several mixing systemcomponents similar to those of the present invention, that have beenmentioned before; this is, this mixing machine has a hopper 11 that canbe mounted upon a chassis (not illustrated) and that in turn can betowed through conventional means, such as a tractor, a vehicle, etc.,said hopper 11 shows on its upper end, a housing 2 where on its innerpart has a rotary gear system, where said system is mainly based onsprockets and chains, see FIG. 1, where only sprockets 3 by themselvesare illustrated, in order to visualize the arrangement of said gearsystem, since for those skilled in the art it is easy to understand saidsystem. This gear system is accessed through a removable cover lid 4(see FIG. 5); where the gear system transmits the rotary movement forboth, rotor 13 as well the pair of worms 15,16 located inside the hopper11, to complete the homogeneously mixing of different materials used forfeeding livestock. Within said mixing machine there is also a gateway 5,where the already mixed materials are discharged. Said gateway 5 can bemoved either manually or through hydraulic means (not illustrated) inorder to speed up the distribution of the livestock food.

According to FIGS. 1 to 3, a mixing machine 10 having arectangular-shape hopper 11 is illustrated, inside said hopper there isa main chamber 12 where a rotor 13 is accommodated; an auxiliary chamber14 where an upper worm 15 and a bottom worm 16 are accommodated, placedin parallel between each other and horizontally, in order to mix andgrind materials accommodated inside. Said bottom worm 16 operates formoving the material longitudinally, from the machine back portion to thefront portion thereof; and the upper worm 15 operates for conveying andcrumbling the material to the mill part of the machine; since on thefirst section 17 of said worm 15, there are loops carrying the materialbut only up to the middle part of the machine, it is at the end of thissection that said material collides with the mill discs 23 and it isoffset towards the rotor 13 and at the rotor 13, this material slipsactually reaching the machine back end, thus completing a mixing cycle.

The upper worm 15 has also a second section, where a plurality of discs23 is mounted (see FIGS. 1 and 5). Each disc 23 shows a plurality ofexchangeable knives 18 at the external edges of said discs 23 and placedon an equidistant arrangement, forming thus a loop. On the other hand,adjacently there is a material collector chute 20, which bottom portionthereof, shows a counterplate which is comprised by a plurality oftriangular-shape exchangeable knives 19 placed at the same length ofsaid second section, said exchangeable knives 19 are fixed relative tothe knives that each of the discs mounted on spiral arrangement theupper worm has, so that, when rotating the upper worm 15 at high speeds(rpm) pass through the exchangeable knives 19 grinding or crushing allmaterial converging on.

Referring to FIG. 4, it shows the material path when the machine isunder operation, this is, materials are moving in circles andlongitudinally, assuring the mixing quality.

Referring to FIG. 5, a mixing machine 10 is illustrated at the rightside portion, the rotor 13 can be shown, where said rotor 13 is afundamental part of the present invention, since thanks to the newdesign, it can move in circles all the material and in turn, it feedsthe bottom worm 16 throughout all its length and only from the middlepart backwards of said rotor 13, axially drops mixed material due togravity. This is achieved due to the rotor spacing between holder 21 andholder 21, which attach arms 22 of the rotor 13.

Both, rotor 13 as well as upper worms 15 and bottom worms 16, are fixedto the gear systems through flanges 25, placed on each of their ends.

1. A mixing machine comprising: a generally rectangular-shaped hopperadapted to be mounted on a chassis and can be towed through conventionalmeans, such as a tractor or a vehicle, the hopper having a plurality ofside walls; rotary gear means, placed on one end of the mixing machine,for moving mixing means inside said hopper; a gateway disposed in atleast one of the side walls of said hopper to discharge mixed materials;a main chamber where a rotor is placed for feeding the material to anauxiliary chamber; the auxiliary chamber adjacent to the main chamber;where a pair of upper and bottom worms are disposed, the upper andbottom worms being generally parallel and horizontal for mixing andoptionally crushing materials, and for discharging materials through thedischarge gateway; a materials collector chute, adjacently placedrelative to the upper worm and throughout the mixing machine, whereinthe upper worm includes a section, in which a plurality of discs ismounted, and which external edges thereof show exchangeable knives,where the exchangeable knives form a loop; and a counterplate proximateon the bottom of the materials collector chute, the counterplatecomprising a plurality of exchangeable triangular-shape knives arrangedadjacent said section of the upper worm, so when said upper wormrotates, the knives of the upper worm discs pass through saidcounterplate knives, grinding or crushing material passing through; andwherein the rotor includes axially spaced holders extending radiallyoutward to support rotor arms when said rotor rotates, the rotor movesthe material by feeding the bottom worm and at the same time droppingmaterial via gravity.
 2. The mixing machine according to claim 1,wherein the knives of the counterplate are fixed relative to the knivesof the discs mounted on the upper worm.
 3. The mixing machine accordingto claim 1, wherein when bottom worm is rotating, the material is movingin a longitudinal path, from the back portion of the machine to thefront portion thereof.
 4. The mixing machine according to claim 1,wherein when upper worm is rotating, it moves the material in alongitudinal path towards the back portion of the machine.